


Brittle Beauties

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied Dominique Weasley/James Sirius Potter, Implied Main Character Death, Next Generation, Post-Canon, Post-Third Wizarding War, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-24 04:08:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2567669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Potters never deal with grief healthily. Why anyone thinks the third generation would be any different, Lily has no idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brittle Beauties

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little drabble I had to get out of my head.  
> Set in a Next-Gen where there was a Third Wizarding War about two decades after the second, in which Ginny and Harry died, and an experimental potion Albus and Scorpius brewed made Lily Luna effectively a Squib.

The rain is still going strong as I walk down the street. I turn my collar up, a feeble protest against it. The house looks cold and empty, the only one on the street that stands dark, a gap in a mouthful of glittering teeth. I push open the creaking gate and walk up the winding path. The crunch of gravel heralds my arrival. The door swings open at my touch.

Inside, shadows lurk and the gloom presses tight. I take off my coat and gloves and drop them to the floor, move further into the house. The door swings shut behind me. I feel my way to the stairs. Climb.

The dust build up on the bannister is more extensive than usual. I should've called by much sooner. The second floor is a shade lighter, a brave sunbeam having pierced the clouds to dash itself against layers of the blackest curtains. I keep climbing.

The second door on the third floor is the first place where I hesitate. Who knows what mess I'll find inside? Childhood memories ambush me. High-pitched giggles, cloying perfume, hushed voices and a forbidden study. I push through the memory-cobwebs and try the door. It's not locked. Of course not. 

The room itself is eternal midnight, dark on dark, but I imagine I can see his siloette sitting hunched over in the armchair. I thread my familiar way over to the window. 

A fond half-smile tugs at my lips when I reach the drapes that used to double as curtains and Dementor robes when we were kids.

"I would have thought that between feeling sorry for yourself and drowning in grief, you wouldn't get anything done," I say as I pull them open and grey light bounces into the room, "but you've proven me quite wrong. Tell me, are those actually boards nailed over the front room windows?"

He doesn't try to protect his eyes, doesn't snark back. I should be worried now. He always had the last word in everything when we were children. I turn towards him, step back from the window, wait. The place is as messy as a Death-Eaters trial. Eventually, a voice croaks up. 

"How did you get in?"

"If you don't want visitors, you should get into the habit of locking doors."

"Locked doors don't keep wizards out."

"I'm hardly one of those any more." He looks anywhere but me. Still feeling guilty, then. 

"Why did you come?" He looks up. The shadows that linger on his face throw his cheekbones into sharp relief, and it'd almost be attactive if it weren't for the weeks-old stubble or the red eyes. Albus always was a messy crier.

"People tend to send for someone, when you lock yourself in your childhood home after your parent's deaths and try to cry yourself to death. And with our family, it sure as hell wasn't going to be cops." I shrug. "James'd be here too, but he's still pretending that everything's sunshine and roses."

Albus tries to regard me through eyelashes melded together by dried tears, then gives up and has to actually look at me. "Aren't you?" There's an ironic twist to his mouth that doesn't sit right. 

I laugh, brushing the question off. 

Albus says, "You got an accent while you were away. "

"Oh! You noticed!" I smile, and that doesn't sit right either.

We Potters, we're very good at pretending.

\---

A week later I have lunch with Dominique, buttered croissants and too-sweet tea. We exchange light-hearted barbs and gossip for a few minutes, before the conversation turns, as always with Dominique these days, to James.

"Do you not talk to him at all any more?" she askes, fingers tapping a staccato beat on the table. She's onto her fourth marraige by now, and she knows what she's doing, but she deals with loss about as well as the rest of our family, which is to say very badly. 

"Of course not," I say. "Eventually you have to talk about something practical relating to their deaths, like Uncle Ron's depression, or looking after Albus, or the will, and he just looks at you blankly for a moment, then starts chattering inanely about Quidditch scores."

She cringes. "He does, doesn't he?" she says, then sighs. We sit and watch life stream by the cafe window. We're quite alike, Dominique and I, like inverted copies of each other, which is probably why we didn't get on so well in our teenage years.

"Isn't it stange, Lils," she says, long after the tea has gone cold and we've both finished our croissants, "isn't it strange how you, of all people, are the last fully sane one of the Potter-Weasleys?" She stares at the soggy sadness of her tea.

I take a sip of mine, which I've long since spiked, summoning my smile back. Really, we should drop the pretences around each other, our sharp edges much too similar for the facades to work, but, old habits. "Oh, darling," I say, "have you met my brothers?"

"Fair enough," she says, a fake smile flickering across her face like a dying neon sign. 

Silence reigns for a while. 

"There's this thing I meant to tell you about," she says. "A support group of sorts."

Life streams by.


End file.
